Whether people are going green or just going after the green, they are lining up to cash in truckloads of scrap metal.

“The commodity markets are at an all-time high, plus there’s a heightened awareness of recycling and the benefits to our environment,” said Brandon Lerman, vice president of operations at Perry E. Iron & Metal in Portland. “At the same time, people are getting more money for their scrap.”

The result: long lines of trucks – many overflowing with junked washers and dryers, car parts or smooshed-up swing sets – waiting for Maine metal recyclers to open. Some belong to commercial scrap haulers; others to homeowners who’ve finally decided to get the cast-iron bathtub out of the backyard.

“I’m seeing lots of new faces,” said Lerman, whose family has operated the business since 1896. “A lot of people who were going to bring those items to the dump or transfer station now realize there’s an incentive to recycle.”

Rates vary among recyclers, but the cast-iron tub, swing set and dryer would bring about 5 cents a pound at most recyclers; car parts are figured at about $200 per ton.

Heavy demand from overseas aided by a weak U.S. dollar is pushing prices higher for certain grades of metal. Some, such as scrap steel, copper, nickel and tin, have tripled in five years. Aluminum cans that were bringing 55 cents per pound in 2003 are now more than $1 per pound. Prices for a gross ton of steel brought $200 last year; this year it’s more than double that.

Patrick Murphy at Maine Metal Recycling in Auburn, a division of Schnitzer Steel Industries, has seen business more than double from this time last year. People driving up Washington Street early in the morning can see a line of vehicles stacked in the breakdown lane, waiting for the doors to open. The same at Grimmel Industries off Main Street in Topsham and at Louis Mack on Warren Avenue in Portland.

Maine Metal Recycling sorts, sizes and grades scrap metal, then transfers it to be recycled. It’s working at capacity, all the time, Murphy said.

“No one was prepared for this,” he said of the relentless increase in business. “But it’s going to the right place; it’s being recycled.”

The big winner is the environment, he said.

“It’s good for the forests and the fields,” he said. “They’re getting cleaned up. By the time current market conditions subside to more normal levels, the amount of available, obsolete scrap will have significantly decreased. It has always been a cyclical industry, foreign development and the global economy have just made the ups and downs more pronounced.”

Lerman said no one knows how long the prices will continue to climb. Since they’re commodities, they can be very sensitive to the markets, rising in price one day, crashing the next and then regaining the third.

“International markets remain strong,” he said. “There was speculation last year that they were stabilizing at a lower price, but then copper broke a record this year.

“I doubt it will slow down in the next couple of years.”